St. John’s Lutheran Church

Policy and Procedure

Procedure for Creating Worship Presentations

Creation of Worship Presentations

1.            Pick up the laptop as early in the week as possible (any time after Monday worship). 

2.            Check the laptop email for the order of worship or pick up a paper copy from the office. Pastor Rebekah will usually have the bulletin/order of worship ready on Mondays. 

3.            Save the order of worship in a new folder in the Worship folder on the desktop using the year, month and date as the file name.  For example:  20090823

4.            Look over the order of worship and check with Pastor Rebekah if you have any questions.

5.            Open Easy Worship and begin to build the worship presentation. 

6.            There is a basic format to each worship service. 

·         Announcements (Jenny will email these on Friday)

·         Welcome slide with the name of the church and date (this is used during the ringing of the bell)

·         Announcements (if possible include a short note about passing the welcome pads)

·         Confession and Forgiveness (optional)

·         Opening songs which may include a Kyrie and a hymn of praise

·         Prayer of the Day

·         Scripture Readings (there may be 1 or more with responses)

·         Sermon (include a slide but know pastor will often add more)

·         Hymn/Song of the Day

·         Creed

·         Prayers

·         Sharing of the Peace (unless done at the beginning)

·         Offering

·         Offering Prayer

·         Thanksgiving at the Table (if there are no printed words, you may use any slide that says or depicts Holy Communion)

·         Lord’s Prayer

·         A transition slide for communion (this could include instructions)

·         Communion Songs – often the first one is a video

·         Another transition slide in case there is not enough music for communion

·         Post-communion blessing and prayer

·         Benediction/Blessing

·         Song (optional)

·         Dismissal and a closing slide

7.            Slide Format Standards

·         When choosing a background for songs and spoken text, be sure to use backgrounds where the words are easily distinguished from the background. Darker and more solid looking ones tend to show better on our wall.  Remember that “pretty pictures” may be nice, but if the congregation has trouble reading the slide it becomes a hindrance to worship.  Use these pictures for transition slides or slides that have headings only.

·         Use an easy to read font like Tahoma for spoken content and songs

·         All congregation parts must be in white text (spoken and written) and should include the word ALL in front of spoken content.  If the text doesn’t show up well, change the background. The content of the presentation is more important than the background.

·         All leader lines and headings should be in a color that is visible on the background.

·         Font size should be 44 bold (the very minimum is Tahoma 36)

·         Remember that less is more. 

·         For a song, it is preferable to have one verse per slide but if it is a long song, you will need to divide the verse over two slides. 

·         For songs, create the first slide with the title and if applicable the hymnal number below. 

·         For songs, try to follow the phrasing in the hymnal so that the end of a line is a natural break in the song.  Ask pastor if you are not sure about this.

·         Include a blank slide at the end of songs for transition purposes.

·         For spoken content, when there is alternating leader and ALL, put only one set of leader and all per slide.  If it doesn’t fit on one slide, abbreviate the leader parts by using the first couple of words and the last few.  (example:  L.  Let us pray…Jesus Christ, our Lord.)  If there is more than six lines of congregation spoken text, please break up the congregation parts over more slides and try to find natural pauses such as periods, commas, etc.

·         Be sure to use consistent centering – preferably left justified

·         When possible, use thematic backgrounds  Often a sermon series has some backgrounds that come with it.  These should be on the technology bench or pastor will note in the email.    Another resource is www.churchpowerpoint.com but check to make sure that the readings are what we are using in worship.

·         When possible, use background colors that match the church year (example: purple for Lent)

·         Let the congregation know where you are going – use topic headings and title screens add in transition slides or full screen titles to announce major transitions.

·         Include a closing slide with an invitation to stay for refreshments

8.            Tips about Easy Worship

·         In order to add something to the schedule, it must be formatted as a “song” in the easy worship database, a Powerpoint file or a video.

·         Many worship pieces are saved in the “song” database.  These usually begin with *.

·         Many of the songs are also in the database, but double check the words

·         When creating PowerPoint files, save each individual file with a title that describes the part of the worship service and save in the worship folder you created earlier.  This is a backup in case the worship presentation crashes it is easy to find all the pieces.

9.            Adding new images for backgrounds

·         First find the images and save them in the folder “Images” found under the “Worship” folder

·         Click on Background (top center of the screen)

·         Select Options

·         From the pop up menu select either “Add” or “Add multiple”

·         Find the image or images you want to add and select them

·         Click open and the images will be added to the background database

10.         Adjusting an image with a border or strong element you want to avoid.  There is an easy way to adjust for this without having to tab and space

·         When adding a “new song”, or “editing a song from the database”

·         click on the image at the right in the Editor menu

·         A white frame should appear around the image

·         Using the mouse, drag the edge of the frame to adjust the text box such as adjusting the left or right side or the top or bottom to avoid a border or busy part of a picture. 

·         Now any text you enter will be automatically adjusted to fit in the frame

11.         Presentation Proofing

·         Walk through the service from beginning to end and make sure that you have each piece covered.  Make sure there are slides for transition times even if they are only a heading or a picture.

·         If you typed in any text for a song double check all spelling and make sure that the words of every song match the hymnal that is referenced in the printed bulletin.  The database has several hymns in it that are similar but do not match our hymnals exactly – please fix these songs when you come across them.

·         If possible, run through the worship presentation at church using the projector to make sure that everything is visible and readable.

·         If there are any special notes indicate these on a printed copy of the bulletin.  For example:  switch the dvd or use the dvd player…

12.         Pastor Rebekah may double check the presentation on Sunday morning so that she is familiar with what will be up on the screen.  If you have any questions or concerns, please let her know so she can try to fix it or make adjustments prior to worship.

Presentation Guidelines (day of presentation)

1.            Be sure to arrive 30 minutes before the beginning of worship.

2.            Power up computer and then projector (there is no need for a password, just click on Sanctuary).  Turn on the sound system.

3.            Open up the Easy Worship file for today’s date

4.            Run through entire presentation to be sure that you are familiar with all parts of the presentation especially any videos, special effects, dvd or cd changes, make sure the captions are turned on for any song videos, etc and compare with the printed bulletin

5.            Begin running the announcements at least 20 minutes before worship.

6.            At the time for worship to begin, switch to the welcome slide and ring the bell.

7.            Then immediately move to the announcements slide.

8.            Remember that you are the driver for the worship presentation and that the Pastor and musicians are usually waiting for you to lead.

9.            Be prepared to make “on the fly” adjustments as required. “Stuff happens.”  If you are having problems, try to catch pastor’s attention.

10.         Following the worship service, leave the closing screen up until most people have exited the worship space.

11.         On Sundays, the computer will usually be used by Sunday school.  If there is no Sunday school and on Mondays, power down the computer, the projector and the sound system

12.         On Monday evenings, please pick up the bulletins and any other garbage from the technology booth and put in the garbage.  Thanks for helping to keep things clean.